Caged
by Zephyr5
Summary: This may not seem like an ff fic, but I assure you it is. COMPLETE
1. chpt1

AN: A strangely inspired musing...  *** encloses memories

Disclaimers: I don't own any ff8 characters, they are © Squaresoft, and I am making no money for this fic :( so don't bother suing me cause you ain't gonna get much...

Rated PG for suggestion

Caged 

I wake, the brief flicker of a life nearby disturbing my dreamless slumber.  Is it time at last?  How long have I lain here, undisturbed?  A long time, so the earth around my body tells me.  The restraints have not rusted, I feel them still, pressed tightly to my skin.

Surely enough time has passed that even the legends of me have passed into the shrouded mists of time?  It feels strange, hollow almost, not to be aware of hatred strong enough to taste in the air.  I can still remember when I was newly captured...

***

I stare at them, my tormentors, my captors, as I am paraded through the streets.  The crowd scream and cheer for the lone figures who ride ahead of my cart - that was my final act, to embed into those who would dare attack me, a sense of loneliness that would cause them all to kill themselves - but those cheers fade to silence as I pass.  Even caged they are afraid.  I do not need to lunge towards them to provoke the crowd to draw back, my gaze alone does that.

I wonder how each individual sees me, for I can no longer see myself reflected in their fear.  I have known people to see me as a great, dark dragon or unicorn, but most see me as I wish, and that is as a mighty sorceress whom they have provoked.  My red eyes rove the crowds, picking out a sprinkling of still-loyal followers.  They are the few who believe I have allowed myself to be captured, and that I plan something.  What, they do not know, cannot know, for, shameful as it is to admit it, I did not plan to be captured.

***

...And then they had to decide what to do with me.  No one wished to keep my presence in their domain for longer than necessity demanded, but they would not kill me.  Instead they made me into a warning, an attraction, a freak in a freak show of other 'mythical' and freak creatures.  Wendigos and dragons, bearded women and snakes with two heads.  Even a 'phoenix pinion' - a childish trick with mirrors that I could easily see through.  But already I was planning my escape.  They said escape would be impossible, but I did not believe them.  So I waited patiently, through the generations, watching the world change completely, and watching the people stay the same.  Always afraid of the nameless dark, always afraid of the noise in the night, the silent killer that takes the lives of any and all.  But my form grew dim in memory, and I began to shape my change...

***

Long fingers wrap around the two bars that I am chained to.  My sharp talons are sheathed now, part of an image of fear that I am slowly changing.  They think they have conquered me.  Fools!  They are weak and stupid - my inferiors in every way except numbers.  They stare at me in mindless fear, then at the gilded bars that bound me on every side.  I sneer at them in contempt.

Those bars are mere mortal construction - it would take only a thought for them to crumble - were it not for these two solid struts, and chains and cuffs which bind me hand and foot.  These and these alone hold me here - forever, or so they think.  There was one amongst those who died to create these chains who was mine.

My touch is limited, but I touch the world still.  My patience is endless - each passing generation will see me change until someone is fool enough to free me - out of misguided pity.  For pity, and pity alone, will open my restraints - and pity is all that I lack.

***

...Later, many generations later, I was ready to try my bid for freedom.  It  seemed that I was right.  The age was complacent.  They had had no near brushes with such as I, they only vaguely remembered the tales their greatfathers told them to scare them into bed at night.  And my situation had changed...

---

AN: a nice little intro, just to whet your appetite...  *cackles* :)


	2. chpt2

AN: A strangely inspired musing...  *** encloses memories

Disclaimers: I don't own any ff8 characters, they are © Squaresoft, and I am making no money for this fic :( so don't bother suing me cause you ain't gonna get much...

Rated PG for suggestion

***

The gilded cage is gone.  All that remains is for me to tempt some unwary soul to release my chains and I am free.  A young 'gentleman' in the crowd is staring at me, and I smell a discordant whiff of concern.  The perfect target.  They all see me as a 'damsel in distress' a player in a travelling circus of myths and legends.  There is, somewhere, a crone, supposed to be me, but these pathetic innocents are unaware that the reality is staring into their minds.

I have been allowing myself to look fainter and fainter, and now I let my head fall to my chest, slumping in the restraints, although they burn with a cold hatred against my pale skin.  I hear the youth shout a protest to the management, then scramble onto the platform.

I feel his hand on my chin, tilting my head upwards to see if I have really fainted, or if it is part of the act.  I continue to deceive him.  The bonds can only be removed through pity, so I cannot directly manipulate him, even though his contact with me means I could.  He reaches for the first restraints, the legs, and I feel them open with soft snick, and then crumble to dust.  I will reward him, this one who has freed me once more.  I will reward him with a quick death.

There is a sudden sound of running boots, and before he can remove the arm restraints, he is knocked aside.  I snarl, coming to life suddenly before a startled audience.  There is no one who can replace the leg restraints in this era, even if there happens to be someone who remembers me.

My disguise in their minds has gone, crumbled to dust as surely as the restraints which once held my legs.  They see me now as I am, the eternal sorceress, suddenly revived before them.  They gasp in horror, and, as a group, flee in terror, a wave of panic spreading before them.

Their saviour, a young man, walks back into my sight.  I snarl in recognition, calling him the foulest things that he can imagine.  He blanches at some of the names, but he knows he is safe.  Slowly he walks around me, as if fixing my image in his mind.  I must look exotic and exciting to him, especially given what he was once used to and what he must have to exist on now.  But he does not pity me, he cannot free me.  I can still wreak revenge on him though, I was not given my names for nothing.

"We thought it best if one of us kept close to you.  We thought you would try to escape."  I sneer at his bravado.

"So where are the others?  They'd never trust you to take care of me, alone."  I deliberately insult his intelligence and fighting skills.  He frowns.  Success!  I remember him too well for him to escape my manipulations.  Already he is hooked, doomed, like a fish on a line, to be landed when I wish.

"I am the only one alive to 'take care of you'."  He realises too late that he should never have revealed that information.  My spell worked well, it would seem, if the others are all dead.

I throw my head back and laugh, knowing him well enough to anticipate his reaction.  He steps forwards, once, twice, a third time.  He is well within range now as he leans forwards to snarl whatever angry message he has for me.  Too late, too late he realises how close he is.  My laughter stops abruptly, my legs taking on a life of their own, wrapping around his waist and drawing him into my body.

"You always wanted me..."  I whisper into his ear.  No one can see us - I am drawing off his power, using his own magic to hide us from prying eyes.  I may have seduced many 'strong' men to my will, but never for an audience, and I'm not about to start now.

He is lost in the world I have captured him in, his mind subservient to mine.  There all his fantasies are coming true, and he believes it is real.

***

...I killed him, eventually.  The last of the Centra, the last of the eternal ones - except me - gone.  Now I knew there would be no one to stop my complete descent through memory once more.  Only the people of that time had a different idea...

---

AN: Not a nice person then...  Who could it be?  *scratches head* 


	3. chpt3

AN: A strangely inspired musing...  *** encloses memories 

Disclaimers: I don't own any ff8 characters, they are © Squaresoft, and I am making no money for this fic :( so don't bother suing me cause you ain't gonna get much...

Rated PG for suggestion

***

The first few soldiers came creeping cautiously up after their bullets fail to do any damage.  They don't know what I am, have no idea to what lengths they would have to go, merely to inflict a wound.  The Centra who captured me could have killed me, but they thought I would change.  Fools.

After hours of quiet discussion, they finally make a decision.  I am to be buried in the heart of a sleeping volcano that lies at the centre of the ocean.  I suppress a smile.  It would seem my old abode has resurfaced in time for me to return.

***

...So they buried me here.  I feel the warmth of natural light begin to penetrate the cold earth around me.  How should I get whoever is digging to release my final restraints?

I hear voices.  Human.  The language has not changed so much that I cannot understand it.  They speak the gutter argot like it is their only language.  Has so much time passed that Centra is forgotten?  Do the daughters of Hyne no longer rule the three quarters of land between them?

I close my eyes and allow myself to appear dead, skeletal.  As an afterthought I let the earth mould itself into the hollow shape of a warning, carved in wood.  They will believe the earth has retained the shape long after the wood rotted.  Now I appear a victim of a sorceress's wrath.

The first touch of light feels hot against my skin.  I wait, patiently, for them to realise they have found something.  Sudden shouts and exclamations indicate they have seen my 'skeletal' foot.  I wait, ever patient, as they slowly uncover more and more of me.  I've waited years, maybe even millennia, for this moment, I know a few more hours, even days won't kill me.

I'm glad, because it takes the diggers another five hours to uncover me.  Fortunately they don't try to remove the 'bones' one by one.  Finally they uncover the 'sign' in the earth.  I hear gasps as they read it.  So someone knows at least a little Centra.

"Poor thing."  I hear one of them say.  "Wonder what she did?"  I can see them leaning over me, examining what they see.  The stench of pity rolls over me in waves, and I fight the impulse to gag.

"Still chained after Hyne knows how long..."  I hear one murmur.

"The least we can do is give her a decent burial."  I hear mutters of assent.  Good, they'll have to touch the remaining restraints to move me, and, given the stench I can smell, there's more than enough pity to ensure they crumble to dust.

Sure enough, I feel earth-stained fingers brush against me, and the wrist restraints spring open.  I hear muttered oaths, and then feel the fine dust as the restraints crumble.  There is more cursing as I change form before their eyes, a phoenix rising from its own ashes.  I can see them, practical scientists, with dirty fingers, clutching the brushes with which they uncovered me.

Sweet, sweet fear now comes from them.  They are fearful of what they have awoken.  Upright now, I stretch.  What do they see me as?  I peer into their minds.  One, the youngest, sees me as a giant black phoenix, wisps of black flame curling from outstretched wings, a cruel gleam in my eye.  The other three see me as a sorceress, towering over them, veiled in dark robes, with only a faint glow of yellow eyes visible.

"What are you doing here?"  I demand, speaking with ease in their language.  We Centra were ever quick to learn.  The elder three are too petrified to speak.  It seems this era knows of sorceresses.  Perhaps I will have competition when I make my return to the world.  I fill their pathetic minds with fear and send them scurrying away.  They will ensure that no one returns here.  I have slept a long time, and must learn what history I have missed, as well as readjusting to my full powers.

---

AN: What have scientists managed to wake now?  Ever notice it's always scientists that are responsible for the majority of strange occurrences?  


	4. chpt4

AN: A strangely inspired musing...  

Disclaimers: I don't own any ff8 characters, they are © Squaresoft, and I am making no money for this fic :( so don't bother suing me cause you ain't gonna get much...

Rated PG for suggestion

***

Hours later I have stripped the events I have missed from the scientist's mind.  He wavers for a moment, then collapses.  He will die within a few hours, but within that time he can still be useful to me.  I have sensed the scientists scurrying around above me, thinking to imprison me with a relic of my time.  I remember Bahamut well.  Those creatures that these mortals call GFs were once Centra...  Fear paralyses my limbs, whilst my mind races.  Centra who were changed by secret processes...  Could that be what my captors meant when they said I would change?

But, I do not feel changed.  I frown, brow furrowing fiercely and look, for the first time, at myself as the dying scientist sees me.  Always before I saw myself as others saw me, often an illusion, for they saw what I wished them to see, but the dying are not susceptible to illusion.

I recoil in horror from what I see.  A giant, towering, *thing* that is no longer recognisable as even remotely humanoid.  I examine myself more closely, using the scientist's broken mind as a mirror.  What am I?  I look more machine than living creature.  I doubt even Bahamut would recognise me.  I am twisted and deformed, and the screaming heads of those who fought to capture me, so long ago, wind around what I now believe to be my chest.  My back appears to be bent over by the weight of a giant focus crystal, although it feels as though I still stand straight and tall.

I wonder, with a twinge of fear, what power they have left me.  I do not feel weaker than before, but given everything else, I no longer know if what I feel is reality or just memory.  I dive deep into my own psyche, searching for something, anything, that might indicate how far change has spread.  I don't even know how the changes are affected, does the physical change first?  Or does the psyche change and force the body to follow suit?  Am I still an Eternal One?  I guess that answer at least must be yes, given that Bahamut and the others are still alive.

I can't seem to find anything different within my psyche.  I sense a marginal decrease in my power, but not significant enough for me to worry overmuch.  I doubt Hyne's blood is very pure by now.  Despite their efforts to keep the chain intact, sorceresses never trusted one another overmuch, and even in my time they were weakening.  Besides, I cannot feel any being with as much strength as me in this sphere of existence.

Satisfied that, even as a GF, I will be able to make my return, I decide to continue with my plan.  Bahamut's presence will prevent anyone disturbing me whilst I work, whilst I plan.  

I quickly set to work, using the vast array of materials around me to create a relic as old as I, if in a newer shell.  A beast rider.  Lovingly I transfer the body of the scientist into the rider, fusing man and machine together.  Physical brain is invaded by microscopic robots and becomes fused into the computer controlling the rider and mount.  I have little time, and the replica is a crude reconstruction of a soldier from the legions of such creatures I once controlled.  I wonder, as the meat/metal fusion continues, if any of my army survived, in some freak show, or deactivated and hidden.

---

AN: Guessed who it is yet?


	5. chpt5

AN: A strangely inspired musing...  

Disclaimers: I don't own any ff8 characters, they are © Squaresoft, and I am making no money for this fic :( so don't bother suing me cause you ain't gonna get much...

Rated PG for suggestion

***

A few decades have passed now.  I and my beast rider wait, patiently, for someone to find us.  I feel the emotions of the world around me.  I know there is a sorceress attempting to take back what is hers.  But it would seem the time of the daughters of Hyne has gone forever.  Though it is a select few who fight openly against her.  Intrigued, I have followed them, and I find myself beginning to feel attracted to one mind amongst them.  A mind that shines like an icy blade, a mind that reminds me of my own.  Beneath the ice rages a fire and an iron will that, perhaps, I could see as an equal.  For I have grown to know my limits, and to know that so much has, indeed, changed.

I no longer have the desire to take the world, instead, my days are empty, and I find myself longing for a purpose, any purpose.  Even to become the partner of a mortal against a daughter of Hyne.  But I will not join a weakling, however great their mind.  I will never give myself willingly to an inferior.

I know instantly when Bahamut accedes to the intruders.  I follow their progress down the ancient stairway with interest.  They cannot see me, hidden in the shadows, sending monster after monster forth to test them.  Finally the girl in blue becomes tired enough that her control slips, and her sorceress side pushes its way to the fore.  There is little point sending monsters against them now, and so I cease to do so.

Only the scarred gunblade warrior seems suspicious.  He is the one whose mind attracted my attention in the first place.  Full of flaws and frailties, but powerful despite them.  I suppress a smile.  He could easily wield as much power as I have to offer.  

They reach the bottom, and the blond fighter immediately begins poking at the carcass of the excavation machines.  I signal my beast rider, and, as it appears, I quietly render both the sorceress and the blond unconscious.  The gunblade warrior notes his fallen comrades, but it doesn't seem to faze him.  Good, he remains calm in dangerous situations, but can he fight?

A few minutes later I have my answer.  He and the beast rider are locked in a stalemate.  Several times the brunette has barely escaped a lethal strike, but each time he has managed to strike back almost before the beast rider can defend.

Both are circling warily.  The rider has found that his beast gives him no advantage, as the two are fused together and cannot attack separately.  The brunette has found that his 'GF', Ifrit, gives him no advantage, as my beast riders were designed to repel Centra attacks.

Finally the brunette backs up, standing straighter, and looking as though he is about to summon Ifrit again.  The beast rider waits, and I frown, disapproving.  Obviously a reaction that needs tweaking in the logic system.  Perhaps the organic brain believes its mechanical body requires respite, however brief, from the prolonged combat.

A light begins to shine from the gunblade as the boy concentrates.  I stare in wonder.  Does he know what he is doing?  I had thought they had all died out, but perhaps...  If he is, then that would go some way to explaining the conflicting fire and ice of his mind...

Fascinated, I watch as the scarred fighter controls the energy and leaps at the beast rider, unleashing a barrage of devastating blows.  I watch the mortally wounded beast rider slowly crumple to the ground and die.  The boy stands, leaning lightly on his gunblade, sweat shining on his face.  He is too tired, for the moment, to worry about his fallen comrades.  There is no danger, he has time to recover himself first.

Slowly I step forwards out of the shadows.  His eyes narrow, and he draws the gunblade up in a guard position, but he does not attack.  I am trying to appear human, but one glance at his mind shows me that he sees the truth.  I let my useless illusion fade with a sigh.

"What are you?"  He asks, wary, but curious.  What am I?  A good question.

"I suppose I'm a GF.  But I wasn't always."  He frowns.

"So what were you?"  There is little chance that he will know my name.

"I was a Centra."  Nothing in his eyes or his mind to show that he knows what I am talking about.  "An Eternal One."  Still nothing.  I shrug, or at least, I think I do.  What my body actually does I don't know, but he seems to get the idea.

"Are you going to fight me?"  I laugh and shake my head in the negative.

"You have already proven yourself worthy."  I point at the dead beast rider.  "Not many can defeat a beast rider."  He frowns.  "Only a select few in fact.  Even in my time."  The frown deepens, and I can see the questions running through his mind.  He says nothing though.  "Are there many gunblade fighters in this time?"  There is suddenly a startlingly clear mental picture of a blond with jade-green eyes, and a scar the mirror image of the brunettes.  The blond is smirking, and I can feel his charisma, even through the thought.

"Just two."  The brunette finally replies.  I sift deeper through his mind, and stumble across the cause of his reticence.

"You don't want to fight him...  You don't want to hurt him..."  Shock and fury darken the brunette's face, and his eyes become two shards of ice, piercing my very being.  He shifts the gunblade slightly, meaningfully.

"Get out of my mind."  I shrug again.  Already I am looking for the mind of the blond in the world around me.  I find it, eventually, and although it takes only seconds it seems much longer.  I missed it the first time, as it is held in thrall to another.  To a daughter of Hyne.

I switch all my concentration to the imprisoned mind.  Cautiously I worm my way between the sorceress's control and into the mind of the blond himself.  His thoughts are in turmoil, constantly stirred by the sorceress.  That is how she is controlling him, by not letting him understand himself.  But there is a core of stability, sanity.  The only thing that stands between the sorceress and complete control.  I am unsurprised to find that it is icy cold, and an image of the brunette in front of me.

The two are meant to be together, I can see that.  Both with minds of fire and ice, one with ice dominant, and the other with fire dominant.  I find myself filled with a desire to get the two where they should be.  Of course, it's quite coincidental that to do so, I'll have to crush a daughter of Hyne...

---

AN: It's quite clear in the game that Eden is no ordinary GF, so this was a musing on where Eden might have come from.  Funny, cause its inspiration was how I was standing on the bus as I went home :)  It started out as an original fic, a sorceress who had been defeated and imprisoned, and then got free to find the world had moved on, and there was no longer a place for her kind.  Only, somewhere along the line my ff8 muse hijacked the plot and refused to give it back :p


End file.
